This patent application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 10/437,017, filed on May 8, 2003 and entitled A MULTIFUNCTION FLOATING BUTTON.
1. Field of the Invention
The embodiments of the invention relate to a button to provide selection between a plurality of options. More specifically, the embodiments relate to one button that can replace a plurality of individual buttons.
2. Background
Cursor control devices have been the ubiquitous for many years. Both the Macintosh® and Windows® operating systems provide for drag and drop using a mouse, trackball or similar cursor control device. Such devices also permit selection of a plurality of, for example, screen icons, by moving the cursor to overlap the icon. These devices tend to be relatively mapped. “Relatively mapped” means that wherever the cursor is, movement of the control device, e.g., trackball, will move the cursor in the direction the control device moves. However, the position of the control device gives no indication of where on the display the cursor might be found. Advances in mouse technology have largely been in the area of improved responsiveness of the cursor to movement of the mouse. For example, early mice relied on a physically moveable ball protruding from the bottom side of the device. Those mice tended to become dirty and then become increasingly less reliable in moving the cursor in response to any movement of the mouse. For laptops, and other handheld devices, small joysticks such as used on the IBM Thinkpad® or touchpads as are commonly found on Macintosh® Powerbooks, proliferated to avoid the inconvenience of having to carry and use the separate mouse in the mobile environment. Common to these cursor control devices is that they are relatively mapped. Additionally, with respect to the touchpad over time, dragging one's finger across the touchpad can reduce sensitivity on both the touchpad and the user's finger.